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See also South Park (disambiguation)

Duwamish Waterway at South Park (2007). South Park is on the left.

South Park is a neighborhood in the city of Seattle, in the US state of Washington. It is located just south of Georgetown across the Duwamish River, and just north of the city of Tukwila. Its main thoroughfares are West Marginal Way S. (northwest- and southeast-bound), S. Cloverdale Street (east- and westbound) and 14th Ave. S (north-and-south). South Park connects to Georgetown by a bridge at the north end of 14th Ave. S. and by two bridges at 1st Ave S. at the northmost end of the neighborhood.

Surrounded by Seattle's industrial area, South Park's soil and air have been polluted; heavy metals have contaminated the top soil and the nearby Duwamish River has been known for unhealthy levels of toxic chemicals.^[1] The property values are lower than elsewhere in Seattle, though some see growth potential in the area. ^[2]

Former town

Newell Mill, South Park's leading business in 1900.^[3]

The Town of South Park was incorporated December 9, 1902 and the Town Council held its first meeting on December 23. South Park was served by three mayors in its four-and-one-half years of existence as an independent town: S.J. Bevan (1902-1903), G.C. Lingenfelter (1903-1905), and A.G. Breidenstein (1906-1907).

South Park was plagued by problems in securing adequate city services. Particularly vexing was the inability to obtain a decent water supply. Although the city of Georgetown owned water mains that ran through South Park, it refused to supply water to the latter, starting a bitter court battle over legal rights to the water. In 1905-1906, the town contracted with an independent water company, but in April 1906 the water was found to be contaminated because South Park did not have a sewer system. The Town Council petitioned Seattle to run Cedar River mains to the edge of the town.

In October 1906, the electorate voted 131-59 for annexation to Seattle, but apparently no action was taken beyond the vote. On March 23, 1907, a second vote for annexation was 181-36 in favor and on May 3, 1907, South Park became part of the City of Seattle.^[4]

Past and present bridges

Prior to the straightening of the Duwamish River to for the Duwamish Waterway, South Park was connected to Georgetown by an electric railway that crossed a north-south bridge at 8th Avenue and by an east-west road bridge on County Road a few blocks northeast of that. A bend in the river resulted in the South Park side of that road bridge actually being the east end, with the Georgetown side on the west.^[5]

After the Duwamish was straightened, a new bridge was built at 8th Avenue (now 8th Avenue South), and operated from 1914 to 1937.^[6]

The current (as of 2009) South Park Bridge is a Scherzer Rolling Lift double-leaf bascule bridge built in 1929-31.^[7] It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places,^[8] but is due for replacement soon.^[9] It connects 16th Avenue S. in Georgetown to 14th Avenue S. in South Park. Just west of the bridge in South Park is a section of brick road that once led to an earlier bridge on more or less the same site. This brick road—one of the few remaining in Seattle—constitutes the northernmost portion of a road that once led from South Park to Des Moines, Washington; eight blocks south of the Duwamish, today's Des Moines Memorial Drive branches off of 14th Avenue S.

Notes

External links

• South Park map, Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas
• Unofficial South Park neighborhood website
• Guide to the Town of South Park Records 1902-1907, Seattle Municipal Archives
• David Wilma, Seattle Neighborhoods: South Park -- Thumbnail History, HistoryLink essay number 2985, February 16, 2001.
• A neighborhood on the upswing, Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Webtowns" series (online neighborhood profiles)
• Kathy Mulady, Budget boosts South Park, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 13, 2006.
• Regina Hackett, Obscure neighborhood on the rebound, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, undated, part of a series run "from 1996 to 2000".